Making a Web Page from Scratch Hits that Nostalgia Button So Hard

| Date 08/18/2024 | Time: 03:27 P.M. EST |

It was about two weeks ago that I stumbled on a video on YouTube that talked about something called "the small web."

The video wasn't too long. You're average 20ish minutes (which in the age of 3 hour video essays is a little refreshing), it was made by a user "You've Got Kat" and was an entertaining little video about her love of "the Indy Web," also referred to as the small web, or the static web. To put it plainly these were the webpages of my youth!

I feel like if anyone is reading this blog, on this site, hosted by Neocities, then I am preaching to the choir. You likely have a little web page of your own somewhere on here and stumbled on mine through the sites network. Either way, for those not initiated these various titles are for what is basically the web as it was in the 90s. They are read only, and very accessible to your average joe who wants to plop in front of their computer for a few hours and lay down a little code. Everything on this page, as an example, was hand coded. I am making it a point that if I cannot code it I wont have it (well, within reason), which is why I do not have a "blogging platform" on this page. I am going to archive everything by hand. As I get better maybe, hopefully, I can make things a little more dynamic but until then we're gonna rock this like it's 1999.

After spending a couple of days rediscovering my love for making web pages, I have come to the conclusion that this could be the therapy people need. There was something humbling about taking my gloves off and touching the soil the internet is planted in. When you go onto (your deity of choice save you) Facebook or even worse Twitter, you're met with a highly curated and sanitized version of the internet. Algorithms turn your own habits against you and echo chambers ensure that after your experience is built you keep coming back. On the static web you just shuffle through page after page. Sometimes you come upon cool things you never imagined, other times you see shit you don't agree with at all and that's the fun. If you see something weird you just hit next or close the window. The algorithm isn't going to haunt you.

My main reason for coming here was for nostalgia and to build and art gallery. All in good time I suppose. I managed to bang out the code for what if here in a couple of hours on a weekend. I assume making a nice little interactive gallery is going to take a little more work (and a lot more JavaScript). I do not currently have a way to leave comments or anything so the end of this post is the end of our time together. I hope you like the work I've put into this little corner of the internet.

Until next time...